Paradise Lost Couples` Dream House Near Airport Has Turned Into A Nightmare.

October 6, 1987|By DUNSTAN McNICHOL, Staff Writer

Even Mr. Rogers, the upbeat children`s television show host, would have a hard time finding a beautiful day in this Broward County neighborhood.

It`s not only the planes swooping just above the rooftops on their way to land at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, several hundred yards away across Interstate 95.

And, says resident Terry Philpot, it can`t really be blamed on Florida Power & Light Co., even though the utility company didn`t help matters last week when it bought up 12 feet of several front yards and erected towers to carry relocated power lines along Southwest 26th Terrace.

Construction of Interstate 595 at the end of the block wouldn`t even have been so bad, Philpot says, if contractors had not decided to dig sand for the project at the other end of the street. That means hundreds of trucks rumble along 26th Terrace, hauling sand and spewing fumes all over the neighborhood.

``The next thing you know it`s going to be a big industrial park,`` Philpot said.

That is not far from the thinking of county planners, who in a report to the county`s Zoning Board last July suggested: ``The area will become a prime area for industrial development due to the confluence of I-595, I-95, State Road 84, the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad.``

Philpot, who has lived for about five years in the neighborhood just south of State Road 84 southwest of Fort Lauderdale, is the neighborhood`s self- appointed spokesman.

He moved to the community for trees, raccoons and ``the country style of living.`` But Philpot now says the neighborhood has been overwhelmed, and he has thrown in the towel.

Three months ago, he said, he had a ``For Sale`` sign in the yard. But sand and exhaust from passing trucks so darkened the sign it became illegible, and he had to take it down.

Now, he said, he is counting on county officials to approve a proposed airport expansion plan, under which the neighborhood would be condemned and the homes purchased and leveled.

``You want us? Come out and get us,`` Philpot said on Friday.

His plea is a new refrain in the chorus of objection that has been raised against plans to expand the airport. Most residents have fought the expansion and argued there is no need to increase air traffic over residential areas in Dania, south of Philpot`s home.

In conversations with County Commission Chairman Howard Forman, Philpot says he had been promised the county would make a commitment to buy up the homes by the end of September.

But when September came and went with no action, Philpot said the time had come to make his concerns public.

``We had everything we ever wanted in our life, and now it`s condemned,`` he said. Now, by stalling the purchase, county officials are letting ongoing development undermine the value of the homes they plan to condemn.

``They`re letting us sit here until all our hopes, all our dreams get so depressed that we`ll take whatever they offer,`` said Regina Philpot, Terry`s wife.

Her husband put it more bluntly: ``What they`re doing is they`re stealing these houses.``

The expansion plan, and the accompanying condemnations, will be considered at a public hearing on Nov. 2. At the hearing, county commissioners will consider adopting the plan, a move they have said would enable them to start condemning the homes.

Forman said on Monday that even after the plan is approved it probably would be three to five years before federal money could be obtained for the condemnation program. Unless the county can find another source of money, he said, the residents of Philpot`s neighborhood would have to wait for the federal money.

But Forman said county officials should seek other money and try to assure that residents get legitimate value for their homes.

Five years ago, Philpot and his new bride, Regina, moved into their house on what he describes as a tranquil 26th Terrace.

``This was our dream house,`` Regina said.

But the dream soured on Feb. 18, 1983, when the County Commission voted to change most of the zoning in the neighborhood from residential to light industrial.

That opened the door to warehouses and small businesses, and the development of I-595 kicked the door wide open.

Now, the fumes from airplanes and concerns about danger and dirt from passing trucks prompt the Philpots to keep their 2-year-old daughter indoors -- away from the back yard lake where the family used to swim, water ski and entertain.

And the knowledge they will be moving has led the family to put off home improvements to the house they had once planned to occupy for a lifetime.

Now, said Regina, ``We just want to know, are we going to have to sit here for another six years?``